pots. ‘There is no hurry. You can sit as much as you like.’ He winked, shook out the drops from the bottle, and then disappeared back inside. She watched him go and wondered in how many places you could sit at someone’s cafe for free.
Standing up, she hauled her weary body across the cobbles, the sun burning on her back, the group of old men sitting on the bench staring, hands resting on their bellies, the old sheepdog at their feet turning its head away as she passed. She felt like everyone knew about the clock.
I don’t care, she said again under her breath. But then why was she so riled?
As she neared the bakery, she saw Jackie and Seb sitting on the chairs, laughing together over chocolate cake. She could see Rachel inside, behind the counter, wrapping up bread and scooping chocolates into gold boxes. The window had changed again, piles of jellied sweets shaped like strawberries and green apples, orange slices and bobbly raspberries glistened in the afternoon sun. Scattered nasturtium flowers fluttered like butterflies, shots of bright vermilion and dazzling cerise. And hanging from ribbons in the window were tiny glass test-tubes, each with a sweet pea drooping from the weight of its pastel petals. If she still had it, a photo of the display would have been worthy of her book.
‘Anna!’ Seb called with a wave.
Jackie was still sniggering as she approached. Again Anna felt like the outsider.
‘Jackie was just asking me whether you’d ever change your mind about coaching her dance group,’ Seb said, as if by way of explanation for the giggling.
Why was that funny? Anna wondered.
‘Seb said that you didn’t really do things for other people.’ Jackie said over a mouthful of chocolate cake.
‘I didn’t say it like that.’ Seb shook his head, waving a hand to try and make her disregard Jackie’s comment. ‘I just said that you weren’t, you know, community-focused.’
Anna didn’t say anything. Just watched the pair of them, a thousand possibilities of what Seb had said swirling through her head. In London this was her time with him. Where she’d call and arrange to meet him in swanky bar, but he’d catch her just before she went in and pull her into a sweet, family-owned tapas place where they’d get free sherry with their chorizo, or make her stroll down the Embankment to look at the river in the twilight and the blue and white lights threaded through the branches of the ragged trees. Like when they first met and she’d led him round London like a pro, pointing out various landmarks and over-egging her knowledge of the history, he’d stopped her with a raised brow when she said something with total conviction about Big Ben or the fact there had to be more than two people in a London Eye pod in case you had sex in there, and he’d said, ‘You’re full of shit, Anna Whitehall.’ And she had turned, ready with a quick retort but had seen the twinkling in his eyes and realised that he was laughing at her. No one had dared laugh at her before and she had loved it.
But this was a different type of laughter. One that excluded her and made her feel foolish, out of the joke.
Jackie sat back in her chair, took a sip of her espresso, and said, ‘Don’t worry about it. You probably don’t have the skill set to do it anyway, Anna. Teaching kids, it’s hard, it’d make working in PR at the Opera House seem like a walk in the park.’
I was at the English Ballet Company School, Anna thought, bristling. I was going to be a star. She closed her eyes and saw sequins and feathers and Swarovski crystals. Powder on a white puff, flicks of eyeliner and the sparkle of shadow. Tights with a hint of shimmer, pointes worn down to the box, ribbons frayed around her calf, the hoops of sweat on her leotard, the vomit in her mouth the split-second before the curtain went up, the thrum of the orchestra, the darkness of her eyelids as she waited, one deep breath after another until she could feel the warm, engulfing heat of the lights. The steely determination, the poise, the in-built stubbornness that fired like the strike of a match as soon as anyone questioned whether she could do it, whether she wanted to or not.
‘Tell me what time they rehearse,’ she said, pulling on her sunglasses, deliberately not looking at Seb. ‘I’ll be there.’
The Nettleton village hall was at the far end of the square, red brick with a parapet and a white key stone with the date, 1906, carved into the masonry. It was flanked on either side by plane trees, their prickly seeds swaying like hedgehogs, the leaves shading the front steps with spots of dancing light breaking through like rain. By the looks of the noticeboard, it was used for everything, from old people’s tea dances to after-school clubs. From the outside, Anna could see the windows decorated with paper-plate suns and pipe-cleaner daffodils.
She could feel her hand shake as she pushed open the heavy wooden front doors and was almost blown backwards by some hideous pop track as it blasted in her face like a roar.
Perfect, she thought. It was like her once only venture to Glastonbury. Same annoying-looking teenagers, same painful music, same hippy-dippy niceness and probably only one toilet that worked.
Jackie and Mrs McNamara were standing at the front of the stage chatting while, what looked to Anna, a bunch of malnutritioned juveniles bounced around like malcoordinated maniacs on stage wearing tracksuit bottoms, oversized T-shirts and crop-tops. One, she noticed, was actually wearing a onesie with a tail. That would have to go.
‘Anna!’ Jackie called, clearly delighted to see her for the pure fact she could now pass the buck of this terrifying shambles.
The hall was stuffy and Anna felt completely overdressed in tight leather-effect leggings, flimsy blue tank-top and a gossamer MaxMara cardigan. The heat, mixed with the nerves of coming back into this type of situation, of drawing on skills that lay happily dormant, made her wonder if she might faint.
‘This is the dream team, Anna Whitehall,’ Mrs McNamara shouted, and Anna’s name on her lips catapulted her straight back to gym class. Huffing and puffing across the lacrosse pitch in the freezing cold. Come on, Whitehall, none of your ballet flim-flam out here!
Anna gave her a tight smile, and then they all stood side by side for a second and watched the debacle on stage. The horror of what she was watching quickly gazumped her fears.
‘OK, Matt,’ Jackie shouted. ‘Turn it off a second.’
A loping, spotty teenager flicked off his iPod on the stand and Anna felt like she’d experienced a miracle.
‘Everyone, this is Anna Whitehall. She’s here to put the final touches to the routine. Iron it out before the big audition.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Anna whispered, perplexed. ‘Was that the routine?’
‘Yeah, what about it?’ A girl with a bright-orange Amy Winehouse beehive shouted from the stage, a tiny nose stud glinting as she sneered.
Anna just waved a hand. ‘Nothing,’ she said, but could feel a wave of the stifled giggles washing over her, mixing with the adrenaline of her nerves, which must have done something strange to her expression because another girl sprang forward, this one with a platinum fringe flicked like Farah Fawcett, and said, eyes narrowed, ‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘Well, it’s just—’ Anna glanced at Jackie and Mrs McNamara for back-up, but they both just looked at her with blank expressions. ‘Well, it has no steps,’ she sniggered, as if it was obvious. She was the first to admit that this style
